How to Afford Christmas

Times are tough. Not just for a few...for everyone. Here are some ideas to help you afford to participate in the gift-giving traditions of Christmas despite tight fiscal restraints. What you need are gifts that cost little or nothing, right? You can make Christmas gifts that will delight those on your list if you just use a little creativity.

Assess your talents. Think of things you know how to make that you could give as gifts. One year during hard times, my husband and I used our pinecones on the ground to make wreaths for everyone on our list! We just glued them to cardboard circles! One year I bought cheap fleece and cut rectangles to be scarves. All I did was just fringe the ends. Of course, you may have much more elaborate talents. People LOVE handmade gifts.

Baked bread makes a great gift. Pull out that breadmaker you got for Christmas a few years ago. If you don't have one, the thrift stores are full of them because people get them and do not use them. I got one for a dollar a few weeks ago so now I have three. No breadmaker? Bake bread by hand or bake something else...cookies, cakes, or candy. Some thrift stores or dollar stores have very cheap baskets you can use to put simple baked goods and make them look pretty with a BIG bow.

Pick up things at the thrift store that you can either give as is or embellish. Add something new to it, for instance, a beautiful teacup and saucer can be filled with fancy teas. It can also be made into a candle, or filled with cheap bath salts or soaps. An old book that is chosen just for a certain person can be enhanced with a handmade or cheap bookmark. It will be a treasured keepsake.

REGIFTING! You knew it was coming. Look through your house and see what you have that you received or purchased, but don't use. It needs to be in new condition, unless it is an antique. Don't be embarrassed because you will probably receive your share of regifted things this year, if people give you anything at all. Because of the depressed economy, many people will probably take the easy way out, and not give any gifts at all.

When you are looking around your house, look inside and outside at your plants! Yes...what plants do you have that could be repotted into smaller plants and given as a gift. Think about containers from the thrift store, or recycle containers you have. Even a tree seedling would be a welcome gift. If you started soon enough...you could start seeds. In addition, what about nuts or fruits on your trees that you could gather and put in a basket for a gift?

Drive around your town. Take a day and drive through your town checking out the remote corners for little shops where you could find dirt-cheap bargains. Thrift stores, antique stores, dollar stores, factory outlets, or who knows what may lie in your little corner of the world. .And, sometimes you can find a box of something for almost nothing you could use as gifts.

Theme baskets. You can take a few cheap items and put them in a basket or bowl. We are again working from your stock, a thrift store, or the dollar store. Take what you can come up with and make a theme basket. Instead of shrink-wrap, you can use a clear bag to tie it up in. Finish it off with a big bow. They sell these at the dollar store. For instance, you could use a can of spaghetti sauce, or a packet of sauce flavoring, some spaghetti, a spaghetti spoon, maybe some bread sticks or something. You could add a cheap hand towel with an Italian theme. These items do not impress anyone much by themselves. However, when you add a few details, it's a theme basket!

Work in quantities, when you can find a real steal of a deal. If you buy in quantity and divide for individual gifts, you can save a lot. This principle works, whether it is for baskets, baked goods or whatever. Maybe you even can divide sets into separate complete gifts! You can get hard candy at a discount and stuff it in cups and baskets for gifts.

Finally.....Wrap your cheap gift as though it were the most expensive gift around. Be sure you tuck crisp, new tissue paper in. The wrapping is 90% of the gift anyway. You can be creative here, too. If you reuse gift bags, use new tissue. You can buy one roll of some kind of paper that isn't even Christmas paper and make it festive with bows and trims. White freezer paper is a wonderful wrapping paper and a background for embellishments. Some newspaper publishers will give you ends of the roll of newsprint paper.

Enjoy Christmas! Do not let worrying about the money keep you from participating. If nothing else, you can buy a pretty Christmas ornament for someone at the dollar store and personalize it with a gold pen , wrap it up beautifully, and go on to the party. Most folks, first of all, will not notice, and then others who do, will not care!

Here's a beautiful thought: give a cheap gift and write a personal letter, card, or poem for the person expressing how much they mean to you. I really liked that idea. A beautiful Christmas ornament from a dollar store with a heartfelt letter of Christmas memories would be treasured.

This year for my 27th wedding anniversary, my husband who was downsized from his job with a corporation and now works a lesser-paying job, wrote me a song for a gift and sang it to me with the guitar. He worked for weeks on the song. (He only knows a few chords on the guitar) Never was there a more beautiful song to me...Or a more beautiful gift!